Last year, AU was named a Truman Foundation Honor Institution for its "active encouragement of young people to pursue careers in public service." This year, three Truman Scholar finalists are AU students.
The prestigious and highly competitive award provides up to $30,000 to be used toward a graduate degree in a public service field in exchange for committing to work in public service for three of the first seven years after they complete a Foundation-funded graduate degree.
The application process requires students to describe the problem or needs of society they want to address when they enter public service and to develop a specific policy proposal that relates to that goal. The process of developing this proposal forces applicants to focus on their goals and develop a strategy for graduate school and their career, according to the H. Truman Scholarship Foundation Web site.
According to the Web site, schools submit about 600 applications for scholarships each year. Around 200 applicants are chosen as finalists and around 75 receive the scholarship.
Daniel Rogers is majoring in International Relations and Economics with a minor in Math. He is a junior and is currently studying abroad in Cairo, Egypt.
Rogers joined the Army the month before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and served for five years, one in Iraq, as a dismounted team leader for a reconnaissance platoon.
"I enlisted because at 18 years old, with a 1.1 high school GPA and essentially no financial support, it was the only positive, none degenerate thing I could do," he said. "The single most important thing I took from the Army was the realization that where I came from, what color my skin was or what tax bracket my parents belonged to are irrelevant compared to what I did as a person."
His policy proposal centers on convincing the Congressional Committee on Appropriations to approve the United States Agency for International Development budgetary request for the Office of Transition Initiatives and launching an inquiry into why the budget has been so drastically slashed despite the increasing need for transition initiatives in failed states.
He said he hopes his project will encourage the United States to take the role of international development in national and international security more seriously.
"We're in two different wars where success is entirely dependent on development and we aren't allocating enough resources to the type of initiatives that will extract us from them and prevent us from getting into them in the first place," Rogers said.
Rogers said he wanted to devote his life to public service because he couldn't imagine doing otherwise.
"I recognized the anger ... I saw in these people's faces the same emotions that I had felt growing up," he said. "I decided then that I would do whatever I could to bring people the same hope I had found."
JoAnna Smith is majoring in Law and Society with a certificate in Women, Policy and Political Leadership. She is a junior and is the executive director of Women's Initiative.
Smith's proposal focuses on passing a bill that would require insurance companies to cover contraceptives if they cover other prescription drugs.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and 16 co-sponsors introduced an example of such legislation in The Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act in 2005. Other versions of the bill were introduced in 1997, 1999 and 2001, but it has not been passed into law.
"Currently more than 45 percent of insurance companies do not cover any of the five most common forms of contraceptives - oral contraceptives, diaphragms, Depo Provera, IUDs and Norplant," Smith said. "Stronger federal laws insuring contraception coverage are imperative to the health and well-being of American women."
Smith said this issue is part of a grander scheme.
"It is unreasonable that insurance companies will cover Viagra, but not this," Smith said. "There are a lot of other health conditions that can be treated with contraceptives. It is medically irresponsible for these prescriptions not to be covered. Moreover, the ability for a woman to control if and when to have children also determines her ability to get and keep a job, maintain her personal health and care for existing children."
She said the battle for reproductive rights is most important to low-income women who already face decreased access to health services because they are more likely to work part time or for employers that do not offer health care.
Smith said she hopes to pursue a law degree and devote her life to working with not-for-profit organizations on women's health issues.
"There are so many injustices in this world, many of which disproportionately affect women," she said. "I feel that it is my responsibility to use the expertise I have developed here to help others achieve a better quality of life."
Anna Carpenter is majoring in International Relations with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. She is a junior but plans to graduate this May.
Carpenter's work focuses on specific language in the Immigration and Naturalization Act that does not allow applicants who had provided "material support" to "terrorists or terrorist organizations" asylum in the United States. However, this vague terminology can lead to terrible situations, especially for women asylum seekers, because it does not take duress into account.
Carpenter spoke about a Liberian woman who applied for asylum after being gang raped by Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy rebels. The woman was held captive in her own home and forced to cook and clean for the rebel group at gunpoint, but her asylum application has been placed on hold because that activity has been ruled as "providing material support to a terrorist organization."
"It's vitally important that this legislation be amended so that future cases such as this one are not put on hold," Carpenter said. "It is time that corrections are made so that people fleeing persecution can be granted safe haven in this country."
Carpenter said she hopes to raise awareness about some of the problems caused by Sept. 11 legislation such as the PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of 2005.
"Asylum seekers and refugees are often left out of the debate about immigration," she said.
Carpenter said her mother was the reason that she wanted to devote her life to public service.
"[She] was a high school teacher in inner-city schools in Minneapolis working with a transitions school for youth coming out of juvenile detention and rehab," Carpenter said. "I have a duty to ensure that my education goes toward serving others. I am just trying to follow her example"
